The assessment of compensation under the Workmen’s Compensation Act depends on the impact of permanent disability on earning capacity, and the Insurance Company is not liable to pay interest unless there is a statutory liability.

JUDGMENT :

Heard.

The parties are arrayed in the present Appeal as per the ranking in the W.C. Case.

2. The claim petitioner filed the claim petition before the Commissioner for Workmen’s Compensation and Assistant Commissioner of Labour, Kadapa, on the ground that, while he was driving the Diesel Oil Tanker bearing no.AP04-T-5367, he has met with an accident albeit taking care after driving the vehicle cautiously. In the said accident, he sustained injuries. The injuries are having impact on his earning capacity. As such, he filed the present claim petition seeking compensation to sustain his future.

3. After considering the evidence, the Insurance Company who is arrayed as Opposite party No.II has filed its Counter affidavit and denied the averments made in the claim petition in toto and interalia stated that, all burn injuries are not fracture injuries and they are healed and there is no disability to hamper his profession for driving the vehicle. It is further averred that the compensation claimed by the claimant is highly excessive and baseless and prayed to dismiss the claim petition.

4. After perusing the evidence both documentary and oral, the Commissioner has awarded an amount of Rs.4,28,376/- towards compensation.

5. In the present Appeal filed by the Insurance Company, it is agitated that the Commissioner for Workmen’s Compensation has erroneously granted exhorbitant compensation. When the injured sustained 50% of disability as per the Doctor Certificate, the Commissioner has taken 100% disability and granted higher compensation. The Commissioner erred in granting 12% interest which is contrary to Section 4(A)(3a) of the Workmen’s Compensation Act, 1923.

6. The first issue is that, the Commissioner has taken the disability as 100% when the Doctor has issued the Certificate, stating the disability of the claimant as 50%. The question concerned is that, the injured is able to discharge his duties as driver or not; in future, is the question to take the disability into consideration and not the certificate issued by the Doctor.

7. When an applicant-claimant suffer a permanent disability as a result of the injuries the assessment of compensation under the head of loss of future earnings would depend upon the effect and impact of such permanent disability or his earning capacity.

8. For the said proposition, this Court relies on the Judgment of this Court in C.M.A.No.800 of 2007, dated 04.01.2021, wherein, the Doctor issued the Certificate of disability at 60% and the Commissioner for Workmen’s Compensation had arrived at 100% disability and granted compensation. The learned Judge after considering the plethora of decisions, relied on the Judgment in “Gona Siva Sankar Vs. K. Vara Prasad and Others, 2006 ACJ 2089,” in somewhat similar circumstances in para no.6 observed as under:-

“6. In the cases on hand, the medical practitioners have certified the percentages of disability to the respective appellants. However, they did not certify the extent of loss of earning capacity. Therefore, the Commissioner has taken upon himself the task of determining the same. In the process, he was mostly guided by his observation of the physical condition of the appellants as well as the observation made by the medical practitioners, as to the nature of difficulty for the appellants to discharge the functions. In is true that the percentage of loss of earning capacity fixed by the Commissioner was more than the percentage of disability. Neither law nor logic requires that the percentage of both the factors have to be the same. Depending on the nature of employment, an injury to a limb or organ may result in almost total loss of earning capacity, whereas in other cases, it may not have any impact at all. It is too difficult to decide these issues with mathematical precision. Unless it is urged before this Court that the exercise undertaken by the Commissioner was perverse or totally arbitrary, this Court cannot interfere with the same. Neither the ap